Lactic Acid is Good For Your Muscles

Perhaps you have heard that lactic acid is the cause of all-sports ailments. Cause of it athlete feel bad, cause to it sore muscles, occur cramps, develops anoxia. In fewer words, lactic acid is the number enemy of any athlete. But this attitude is not true since lactic acid is actually not such a bad thing. According to biochemical composition lactic acid is a by-product breakdown of glucose and glycogen in the process called glycolysis.

The first two syllables - glyco - refer to glucose (its molecules combine to form glycogen, stored in the muscles) and the end "lease" means the splitting of the decay. In fact, lactic acid is a molecule of glucose which is split in half. Glycolysis is very necessary for our body. Why so? The explanation is that during the glucose decay are formed some special agents that muscle cells use as energy fuel.

Under the influence of the impact of training, glycolysis is extremely accelerated and the pyruvate formed is too much. Not all of them is used, thus excess pyruvate is just converted into lactic acid.

What Causes the Pain?

Despite this is one of the most common misconceptions which have been explained in hundreds of articles, it continues to be very common among athletes. First of all have to be mentioned that lactic acid has nothing to do with delayed muscle pain, the same that you feel in a day or two after a hard workout.

This pain occurs because of microscopic tears of fibers during the eccentric (negative) phase of the movement. Yes, it is oddly enough, but namely lowering of weights leads its damage! And if during the training someone instead of you let down the weight your work with, and you would have had only to pick it up, then the muscle would not hurt! And it is scientifically established fact!

But the concentric contraction (lifting weights) does not cause microscopic damages. But the paradox is that precisely while lifting weight is produced the biggest amount of lactic acid! And if the cause of pain is lactic acid, then after the concentric movements the body must get sick even harder. But in reality, it is just the opposite!

Do you Need a Message to get Rid of Lactic Acid?

Almost all massage therapists will tell you that massage helps your body to get rid of lactic acid. Also, they say that after the message is advised to take a warm bath to finally release the body of this mischief.

Despite all these, there is no evidence that massage and warm bath release the body of lactic acid.
It is clear that the accumulation of lactic acid leads to a weakness (in other words, during a workout the muscles get tired.) Maybe if immediately after a workout to do massage, recovery will be faster? Let's see what say on this matter scientists.

Namely, on this subject specialist from the University of Northern Iowa, have recently conducted an interesting study. For the beginning, the participants in the experiment have run on the treadmill. They all were experienced runners and well fulfilled the task for 4-6 minutes, brought themselves to exhaustion, and thus sharply raised in their blood the level of salts of lactic acid.

And then the scientists had to figure out how massage, passive recreation and quiet cycling influence on this lactic acid. Specialists have done a blood test of athletes immediately after the race, but the second time after 20 minutes after ending one of three modes of recovery.

The results have shown that nor passive recovery nor massage did not affect the level of lactic acid salts!
But 15-20 minutes of quiet ride a bike reduces it. Of course, this does not mean that message is useless. But it just has nothing to do with lactic acid!

How Lactic Acid Works

Accumulating, lactic acid hinders muscle contraction, nerve conduction, and energy production. This is one reason why you get tired while training. And yet, lactic acid is not just a waste of energy production. The irony is you that it is by itself a source of energy.

Carbohydrates, which we get from food, not just go to the liver, to turn it into glycogen. In the beginning, they get into the bloodstream, and then in muscles, where they are converted into lactic acid. After this salt of lactic acid return in the bloodstream and enter the liver for conversion into glycogen. Sometimes on the way they use as fuel other tissues, such as heart tissue, liver, and kidneys.

Why during the formation of glycogen occurs, this workaround process? The explanation is that the salts of lactic acid are released from the bloodstream faster than glucose. This allows spreading coming with food carbohydrates without changes of insulin and no accumulation of fat.

In addition, lactic acid is often used by the body as an important source of energy and raw materials for the synthesis of glucose and glycogen. When you train with high intensity, lactic acid, produced under the fast muscle fibers, turn into slow fibers and provides them with energy fuel.

Approximately 75 percent of the lactic acid produced during exercise, is used as fuel. The remaining 25 percent is converted into glucose in the liver and kidneys. Thus, any excess of lactic acid is not accumulated, instead of in the blood is maintained at an adequate level of glucose.

And this is especially important for long-term training. But that's not all. Did you know that during the study was shown that muscles which were not involved in work (leg muscle, for example) released lactic acid from its glycogen stores? This lactic acid along with bloodstream come into the liver and is converted into glucose. A glucose, in turn, is sent to the active working muscles and serves as a raw material for the restoration of glycogen. Thus, a lactic acid o non-working muscles help recovery the working ones.

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Exchange Control

In order for glucose to pass through cell membranes, it needs insulin. The molecule of lactic acid is half of the glucose molecule and hormone support it is not necessary, as it is very easy to pass through cell membranes. In addition, the muscles produce a large amount of lactic acid in the bloodstream, and there it also serves as a potential fuel for energy production.

As you see lactic acid is not is not the worst enemy, but a good friend of a bodybuilder. And do not believe those who say otherwise!